"We need to deal with the big picture": SEC boss Greg Sankey slams NCAA amid collegiate body's probe on Tennessee's alleged NIL violation

Amid the NCAA investigation into the Tennessee football program, Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey is asking the governing body to focus on the bigger picture instead of getting distracted by certain specific matters within the college sports landscape.

The University of Tennessee is under investigation by the NCAA for name, image and likeness violations across multiple sports. However, Sankey believes there are bigger realities that need to be dealt with and that should be the focus of the NCAA.

“Those are the big pictures that need to be resolved as the primary focus,” Sankey said. “We shouldn’t be distracted by specific matters. We need to deal with the big picture.”

“I have a history of not commenting on specific matters. What’s in front of us are a big set of realities. Not simply — quote — cases, but big realities. We need to be dealing with the big realities.”

Tennessee holds the same view as Greg Sankey

In a statement on Thursday, the Tennessee athletic department expressed the sentiment of Greg Sankey more assertively, describing the investigation by the NCAA as unproductive and believing more time should be spent bringing out strategies that make the landscape better.

“We need to be spending our time and energy on solutions to better organize college athletics in the NIL era,” the Volunteers wrote in a statement.

The Volunteers athletic director, Danny White, said that the NCAA was unable to find any evidence of NIL violations in its investigation into the program. The governing body’s investigators notably reviewed the phones of coaches and personnel.

“After reviewing thousands of Tennessee coach and personnel phone records, NCAA investigators didn’t find a single NIL violation, so they moved the goal post to fit a predetermined outcome,” White said in his statement.

White contends that the NCAA is trying to prove a point in its investigation of the program with NIL regulation that the association membership did not agree to. He noted that the body was considering old booster bylaws that aren’t applicable to modern forms of NIL collectives.

“They are stating the nebulous, contradictory NIL guidelines (written by the NCAA not the membership) don’t matter and applying the old booster bylaws to collectives.

In reaction to the probe, Tennessee and Virginia's attorneys general filed an antitrust complaint against the NCAA. They are requesting a restraining order to prevent the governing body from applying its strict recruiting policy to NIL inducements.